Overturned Tower

——Zheng Sheng actually thinks that this black dome cut off from light is the "protector" of the world rather than the "destroyer"?

"...I see. From the very beginning, you knew that there was a loophole in the 'Hei Tian'. By returning the extraordinary power, the Black Dome could be shattered... No, you specially set this up, right?"

Russell muttered in a low voice, and gradually figured it out: "That's why you turned a blind eye to the act of going to the 'Temple Island' and destroying the server of the 'Scripture'. You have already transferred the group of gods you created to the black In the sky!"

That's why "someone must control the dragon and the gray dome"!

If this world was plunged into complete darkness and freezing, the servers on Temple Island might not be able to survive the low temperature.So, how can they save themselves as digital beings?

They transferred and stored themselves in the "black sky"!

"Are you going to sacrifice yourself to help others?"

As soon as Russell spoke, he suddenly understood what the Pope meant: "No, that's not right. You are——gambling."

"This is not a bet, but a test!"

The young, confident, and energetic voice of the youth sounded from the mecha: "Now, only you, me, and Huameng can decide the outcome on this planet. It is true that I have absolute confidence in myself—— But objectively, I also have to consider the 'you're right' possibility.

"There will never be any omissions in the plan I have made. Although I don't think you can succeed, you might as well come and show me.

"—Then let me see. Let me see, whether those extraordinary people can choose to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the world, even if it is a 'sacrifice' that has nothing to do with life."

This is exactly the Pope's second plan.

If he fails, it must be because of the unity of human beings, not the erosion of illusions—under his layout, if human beings can break through the "black sky" he created, it means that they have completely resisted. Enabling the fantasy dream also means that the fantasy dream is completely sealed.

And if he succeeds, then human beings will be extinct under the freezing, and the illusion will be sealed again. The "group gods" are controlling the "black sky", and when all human beings are extinct, they can open the black dome, unfreeze the glaciers, and perform civilization again.

"Because what is stored in the black sky is not the power of discrete holy orders, but a conscious 'group god'. This means that no matter how much those extraordinary people pay, they cannot be completely eliminated-only you, Russell.

"No one can accurately observe how much power of the Holy Order has been melted in the black sky. But the final impact can only be you, it must be you.

"If there are not enough people willing to sacrifice for civilization, then your psychic power will dissolve at the time of collision. The illusion that you sealed will escape the seal, and everyone will die together. Even we cannot escape. If You don't trust other people yourself, you'd better be self-aware and become a name-calling elf...become the new 'unbroken tower'. Let this world start a cycle again.

"There is only one situation in which human beings can win, and that is to truly transcend their illusions, overcome their own inferior nature, and let enough people return their 'extraordinary' to the sky. Then when you collide with the black sky, you will If all the group gods can be dissolved, 'we' will have no value in existence.

"—Praise my genius design as much as you want, Russell. If you win, it means that you have proved that human beings have defeated the dusk, and I am also very happy; and if you fail, then I have won, and of course I am very happy Happy; if we all lose, at least you didn't win, and I'm still happy.

"HE, reincarnation; BE, dream; TE, sky. I have designed all three endings for you. Which step you can achieve is up to you.

"How about it, isn't it a very fair bet?"

The three-meter-tall giant laughed out loud.There was no hesitation in his words.

"……I understand."

Russell just lowered his eyes: "You want to win so much."

"I'm a digital being now, Russell. Digital beings only have 0s and 1s, so it's either one or the other."

"So the future you design must only have 'yes' or 'no'. It's like a right-and-no gate to judge logic." The young man said.

"This is the most perfect form of the 'plan'—it's either one or the other, it's all victory." The young man said.

"But human beings only need to survive, not always victory. Human beings seem to be in great danger now, but in fact they only need to take a step forward. It doesn't have to be now, it doesn't have to be the future, it may be the next time..." said the boy .

"Maybe not, Russell. I only believe in the answers in calculations. Probability is absolute. The overall success rate of my plan is over 99.99%." The young man said.

"—probability is false. For a reality that only has one chance, even a random probability of 0.01% is a true reality." The hero's tone was calm.

"There is no need to continue the conversation, Russell. There will only be an infinite loop. What we want is the process, and what we want is the result. There is no right or wrong, but they cannot coexist."

The Pope's tone was flat and rational: "Kill me.

"'I' can't go back to the sky. But I will be your last nourishment."

In an instant, the sun reversed and turned into the moon.The deep blue sea boiled and turned into a sea of ​​blood.

A series of metal Optimus pillars rose from the ground, gathered at the center of the full moon, blocking the light in the sky.Turned into a huge birdcage.On the contrary, the sea of ​​blood under their feet was churning, and the dry and cracked ground floated up from the sea level.

Between the heaven and the earth, everything is a cage.You and I, all beings, are birds in a cage.

This is different from the blood and tears that Xiao Liuli wept and condensed at the beginning, but another interpretation.

The dark golden mecha became transparent, and was then stripped back to the real world.

But what emerged from it was not such a rebellious and confident young man like a god.

He was actually a skinny old man with brown hair and blue eyes who was getting old!

The pope, who was in a spiritual state, looked down at his withered hands in a daze.That was when all the technology and all external influences on him were stripped away, revealing his original appearance.

He suddenly realized that he was so old.It doesn't even look like he was 60 years old when he became the first promotion, but more than 100 years old.Thin as a skeleton, light and fluffy, as if it could be lifted with one hand.

When he looked down and saw his hands were so old, there was obvious surprise and suddenness in his eyes.His expression froze completely.That was something he hadn't even thought about.

Even though he uploaded his thoughts, the hundred years still existed.His soul did not become younger because he left his body-although AI calculated his youthful voice and simulated his youthful mentality, those are still "external things".

All of a sudden, there are thousands of thoughts.The old man's back was bent, and the sea of ​​blood was reflected in his pupils.There was no self-confidence in his pupils anymore, because he suddenly realized that he had made a mistake—it was a low-level mistake, a mistake he had known since he was a teenager, but he had completely forgotten it at some point, or deliberately ignored it. fact.

What determines the essence of a person is the memory and will condensed by everything he has experienced, not his physical age. The "God's Falling Device" was a technology destined to get out of control from the very beginning-it allowed a person to have the fruit of a life that did not belong to him out of thin air.

Ironically, the angels all remember that these memories are not their own.But he himself forgot.

"... Sure enough," the old man murmured in a low voice, "time will never return..."

He raised his head, and the moment he met Russell's eyes, his pupils were filled with a kind of insightful light.

At the moment when he realized that he was getting old, he seemed to understand what went wrong with him.

However, it was too late.Everything about him was too late.

But fortunately, the world still has time.

Russell stood there without moving, but the brilliant golden lightsaber in his hand suddenly extended infinitely—with his swinging the sword, it slanted across the entire world, together with the old man's decayed spirit.

A brilliant golden crack emerged incomparably vividly on his dark green spiritual body, shining like the sun.

"I'm actually...a sinner."

The skinny old man murmured in a low voice and knelt down slowly.But just before he knelt on the ground, light suddenly burst out from his spiritual body——his body suddenly shattered in the cage of heaven and earth.

Countless memory fragments scattered around, embedded in the entire world.Attached to each cage is a fragment of his memory from youth to youth, from youth to middle age, from middle age to old age.

"I hope my knife is sharp enough, you die without pain, and the sinner is promoted. I hope we can defeat you, the bully who stole the sky..."

Russell said softly, only feeling that the beheading of the saint in his hand was extremely heavy.

That's not "life weight" or "life weight"—it's "future weight."

It is a key to the planet's unrecognizable future.

The boy stretched out his hand towards the distant sky.Under the gentle blood moon, in the sound of the eternally resounding tide, pointing at those fragments of life that are as bright as stars, whispered: "I was only one step away from becoming you. But now, I refuse That kind of future—a mask can only be a mask, and I will eventually be a mortal. The shell of others is not me.

"Rest in peace, Andrew. Let me see your heart...then, come to me."

Chapter 51 Russell's Resolution

Those bright or dim pasts hung in the sky like stars, shining with all kinds of brilliance under the blood moon.

It was like looking at a street lamp with tears in my eyes, the light fading in the hazy world.

Among the many memory fragments that Russell has seen, this is the farthest and most thorough fragmentation of Bengfei.

Maybe it's because he's dead, maybe it's because "Andrew" has already died—or maybe it's because he has embedded too many memories that don't belong to him into his mind, so that the past that really belongs to him has been forgotten. Penetrating to fragmented and vulnerable.

And as Russell opened his hands to the "stars" in the night sky, the brilliance from the past was reflected in the mirror——

In the narrow and messy room, electric lights were on everywhere, and the pungent smell of rubber, plastic and oil exuded in the air.

A man is wearing a fully enclosed helmet with a silicone rod in his mouth.He was alone in the room.

Sturdy rubber rings secure his hands and feet to the crude instrument seat, and a button is strapped to the armrest, taped to hold it in his palm.

With a certain determination, he slowly pressed the button, and various instruments in the room sounded with the sound of the turbine that gradually became sharper.He closed his eyes, and then his body suddenly began to twitch violently——

He suddenly clenched the rubber gag in his mouth, and the exposed neck instantly became red, and the veins burst out from the force.In just a few seconds, he couldn't help but press the button in his hand.

As the helmet was raised, the man coughed violently and continuously, spitting out the silicone stick with saliva in his hand.His whole face became flushed, his eyeballs protruded obviously due to the pressure, and then he began to have severe asthma.He gave himself an intramuscular injection with a violently trembling hand, and then gradually calmed down.

It was a middle-aged man with brown hair, blue eyes, and greasy and messy hair.After he calmed down, he coughed violently a few more times, then stretched out his trembling hands and picked up his gold-rimmed glasses.

He had just put on his glasses, and then he began to cough more and more intensely.Coughing and coughing, he couldn't even straighten up, and coughed and dropped the glasses he had just put on on the ground.

Then he suddenly covered his mouth with his hand, stumbled and ran to the sink in the corner, and began to vomit, but he couldn't vomit anything, only thin gastric juice and the porridge he drank in the morning.When running past, he even stepped on his glasses leg in a panic.

"...Damn it, shit! Shit!"

The man reached out and held the mirror on the sink, cursing in a low voice: "It's messed up again..."

He looked at himself in the mirror and saw tears in the corners of his eyes.The world in front of me is so blurry.Not just because of coughing, or vomiting, but because of the experiment itself that kept failing.

"Sage, if you look at me, please let me succeed..."

He murmured in a low voice, his voice hoarse and whimpering: "Even if there is only one time. As long as I succeed once...

"I really, can't hold on any longer..."

Suddenly, he suddenly turned his head and looked in Russell's direction: "What's the sound?

"--Who are you?"

Russell didn't say a word, but his face showed an expression of astonishment or expectation, half crying and half laughing: "Can you talk again? I seem to have heard it! I seem——I have never heard it Such a voice—this is not my memory!

"I seem to have succeeded! I may have succeeded! I have succeeded!"

Short memories shattered.

What appeared in front of Russell again was the dim yellow sunset.

"My lord Pope..."

"His" perspective seemed a little skewed, so he pushed his glasses in discomfort.But the temples of the glasses had been bent, so no matter how you pushed them, they couldn't be pushed straight.

In front of the old man with white hair and beard, he looked very nervous.From time to time, his hand pinched the corner of his clothes, and his back bent down a little unconsciously.He felt his lower back and his butt a little itchy, maybe because he had stood for a long time, or maybe because he hadn't exercised for a long time, the heat of sweat was sealed by the pores.He wanted to tickle, but he didn't dare to show such disrespect in front of the old man.This made him feel more and more uncomfortable.

But the sum of all these discomforts couldn't keep up with his inner uneasiness.

He watched the old man flip through those documents—those painstaking efforts, those taboo studies, and felt his own heart beating deafeningly.

The old man was silent.He looked at it for a long time without saying a word.

Then, he sighed slowly.The sigh seemed to tug at his heart.

"Andrew."

The old man's voice was slow.Generous and kind, giving people a strong sense of peace of mind.

"Do you understand what taboo you are touching?"

"...I understand, Your Excellency the Pope."

Words from the heart, blurted out from the middle-aged population: "But I think that even a sinful life——is better than a clean death."

"...Oh. You think so."

The old man raised his head and looked into his eyes seriously, and sighed helplessly: "Andrew, I just want to ask you a word.

"If you import the memories and emotions of the sages into yourself—can you still die as yourself, as a human being?"

"of course."

"Russell" replied without hesitation: "No matter what is injected into my brain, what finally makes 'me' become 'me' will only be everything I have experienced. Those are nothing but foreign objects That's all."

"Remember what you said now, Andrew."

The old man sighed deeply again, and slapped those documents on the desktop lightly.He looked out the window with deep and sad eyes.

Under the setting sun, the mage towers floating in the air in the distance are like fortresses slowly advancing in the air. The bombing makes blood and fire the background color of the setting sun.

"My lord Pope..."

Although Andrew was not denied, he did not get a clear answer, so he was still a little bit unwilling.He tidied up the documents on the desktop, and asked tentatively, "Are you more inclined to...the so-called 'clean death'?"

"Andrew, you have to remember. The reason we are against the mages is not because they are wrong and we are right. That is what we tell the believers, we cannot believe it ourselves."

The old man said slowly: "There is only one real reason for this war - that is, we exist in the world at the same time. And this world is too small, it can only accommodate one of the 'church' and the 'mage'.

"If we win, the world will be better; if they win in the end, the world may not be too bad. The world can always go on, the difference is whether it is inclined to us or to them; but what about ordinary people? Live or how to live.

"If we control the world, their lives will indeed improve because of our system, but this does not mean that they will be separated from the bottom; if the mages control the world, it will just continue the previous society. This world is a sad place. The cycle of the upper layer is always changing, but the bottom layer is always the bottom layer.

"If we are doomed to fail, we might as well accept failure. Choose a clean death and leave behind a clear fire. When the mages' rule becomes corrupt and the tower is about to fall, some people will remember that we once existed.

"The reverse is also true. If we become superior one day, they will also remember the goodness of the mages and learn spells again. Because in their limited cognition, the mages 'died with the cleansing fire' .”